25 Years of Troy Trepanier's Greatest Hits, In His Own Words

Troy Trepanier’s creations have been seen in HOT ROD magazine for 25 years now, to the point that the staff is occasionally accused of playing favorites with the guy. But how can we not? He got his start as a snotnosed kid with a pink Chevelle, participated in HOT ROD’s road trip adventures, and, oh yeah, he’s built a Ridler winner, a 300-mph land-speed car, customs, and street rods, each time setting the bar a little bit higher for innovation, aesthetics, and quality workmanship. Troy started out in his dad Jack’s general repair shop, building hot rods at night before graduating to his own building next to his dad’s place in Manteno, Illinois, to start Rad Rides by Troy, where so many magazine feature cars have been born. These pages showcase Troy’s career thus far—celebrating his 25 years by educating younger readers on some of the memorable stuff his shop has done. There are some neat builds the shop has done that are not shown here, but these are the highlights.

About his philosophy on building cars, Troy tells us, “You have to always put out a quality product, because they only judge you on what you’ve done last. Let’s say you’re building a car, and the customer gets sticky or something happens. You can never tell someone, ‘I would have done it nicer, but the guy ran out of money.’ You can’t do that, so whatever happened, we always delivered a good product. It always costs too much and takes too long, but at least you can argue quality in the end. I was fortunate that I grew up in the era when Gray [Baskerville] was around. I got to meet Angelo [Giampetroni of Ford Racing], and I’ve been great friends with Boyd, Posie, Brizio, the Edelbrocks—that whole group. I see these young guys now, and I wonder who they’re going to get to hang with and fit in with.”

We know the answer to that: They’re looking up to Troy.

Launch

1966 Chevy Chevelle

That’s the one that got me started. My grandfather bought that car brand new from the local Chevy garage in town, and I remember growing up in it. I took apart engines at my dad’s place and welded pop cans together in my grandpa’s garage, so I was around a little bit of fabrication. Grandpa was a pipe fitter, and he had a little one-car garage. He would pull the car out when he had a job to do, and one day when I was 14, it wouldn’t idle, so he put a piece of pipe to hold the gas pedal down, and it went all the way to the floor and blew it up. So that’s how I acquired it, and we did it real basic. We painted it, did some Center Line wheels, real simple. In 1987, I went to the Street Machine Nationals in Du Quoin [Illinois] the first time and saw what was going on, and it opened my eyes up, so I came back and redid it, and that’s when Gray [Baskerville] shot it, in 1988. My old man and mom bought it from me so I could do my next car, and they drove it on a couple Power Tours and then sold it. I don’t keep anything and don’t get attached, but I probably should have kept that one.

1/28

Pro Box

1960 Chevy Impala

We had some success in HOT ROD magazine and looked for something different, and I saw a 1960 Chevy at a Super Chevy meet in 1989 and thought, Man, that’s a really wild car. At that time, nobody was doing anything with them, not even restoring them, so I found one in Texas. A buddy and I flew there, I brought some spare parts, and we drove it home all the way from Texas. It was an unbelievable, low-mile car—had never been touched. That’s one of my favorite body styles still. I went with the monochromatic theme of the time, did the brushed trim on it and the weird colors. I often say the first three or four cars, I did for myself. They were obviously different body styles, and the colors were edgy—borderline gaudy, I would say now. But it got me the biggest bang for the buck. We built that car in about 10 months, Pro Streeted it, and me and Gray drove that thing from Indianapolis to Las Vegas for the SEMA Show that year, in 1990, on the Victory Tour, which I tell everybody was really the first HOT ROD Power Tour. We put it in the Petersen Publishing booth for the magazine, and they ended up picking it for HOT ROD’s Car of the Year in 1990, so that was a real good stepping stone for me.

2/28

Bumongous

1950 Buick Sedanette

The Buick was kind of interesting because I’d done the 1960, a wild body style, and was looking to do something else. About six miles from here was a junkyard, and for about a year and a half I drove by this 1950 Buick sitting in the weeds. All you could see was that big bumper, the teeth, and I thought, Man, that’s really interesting. So that’s what sparked me on that car. I’d worked with Steve Stanford on my 1966 Chevelle a little bit, on a paint scheme, so I called him up and he did a pretty cool little rendering that got me really sparked about it. I found that car out in Ojai, California, and brought it back, cut it up, got it done in about 10 to 11 months. It had a big-block this time and wild colors, to say the least. They did a nice feature in HOT ROD, and that also was HOT ROD’s Car of the Year in 1992. I did a little driving with it, did Power Tour, and hooked up with Orion when the car-stereo thing was big and did some stuff with them. That was another good stepping stone for me. The 1960 Chevy and 1950 Buick are both within about four hours of me now.

3/28

Rumbler

1960 Rambler Wagon

While we were working on the Buick, I was having my house built, and the guy that was building my house said, ‘Hey, I got this old car in a barn that blew down.’ We went to look at it, thinking it was going to be junk, but it was the most perfect 1960 Rambler American wagon on the planet! And it was all taken apart and put inside. The barn had literally blown down around it. We brought it back, and it sat beside the shop for a while, and we originally started building it for a guy who worked for me at the time. And that was fun, a little V8 with cross-ram injection. Stanford did the paint scheme for me. It was a neat car. I drove it on Americruise with my dad. That was one of the first cars where I started paying attention to the engine compartment. I was a mechanic before I was a fabricator, so we’re a little better at making things work. Some guys in this industry can make them look good, but then do they work? It got a big nice feature in HOT ROD, and I think it was a Top Ten car. I had a really good streak going, a reputation was building, and working with Gray all the time, repeating with three interesting cars in a row gave me a good foothold in the industry with manufacturers and things like that. And I think being a young guy and driving these cars and doing the Power Tours early on—it was a crucial time, we learned a lot. I think that car’s in Atlanta. That was the last car I owned.

4/28

We drove it thru Chicago in a rainstorm I’ll never forget. Up on 294 with the semis passing you and the windows all fogged up, no wipers, and you’re in this car, and it’s 6 feet wide and 15 feet long, trying to not get killed…it was an interesting time.”
— Troy Trepanier

Predator

1939 Chevy Coupe

Predator was my first customer car. Dan Jacobs was a local family friend, owned the Ace Hardware in town. He’d owned the thing forever and wanted to redo it, so we brought it in, and it was me and Bob Thrash at the time, and my dad a little bit, and we did the Predator. It went to Autorama in 1996, I think. We drove it on Power Tour, and it went to the Ridler. We only had $100,000 or something in it, and we were competing against George Poteet’s 1937, a real nice car. We did OK, though, and made the Great 8. Predator was a neat car because Chip [Foose] and his dad [famed customizer
Sam Foose] flew in and helped me and my dad chop the roof on it.

5/28

That car showed the country we can do anything, and that I can get it done.”
- Troy Trepanier

Sniper

1954 Plymouth Savoy

6/28

We were at the Ridler with Predator, and that’s where I met George Poteet. We chatted for five minutes, and I didn’t think anything about it. Then three months later, we’re on the rooftop of the Petersen [Automotive Museum] before the Power Tour, and I’m sitting by the 1939 and about 10 cars down, there’s George, who’d brought a couple of cars. Right on the rooftop, he asked me what I wanted to do next, and I’d been talking to Chip and I’d seen a 1954 Plymouth and thought it would be killer to do with Mercedes headlights and a Viper drivetrain. I had a five-minute conversation with Chip months earlier, and he’d faxed me a quick sketch, and I had that folded up in my pocket, so I showed him the sketch. He said he learned how to drive in a 1954 Plymouth. So we’re driving cross-country, and he had a camper, so we’d stop and shoot the breeze, and about halfway through he said, ‘I’d like you to build that car.’ And then ‘let’s find a car,’ and that’s how that started. George was my first big-time customer, the first guy that said, ‘Show me what you can do.’

So we get the Sniper here, and it was terrible. It had been sitting in this dump back East somewhere, so we take it all apart. I wanted a Viper drivetrain, but in 1996 you couldn’t just go to the junkyard and get an engine. Then I remembered I met a guy from Chrysler when I had my 1950 Buick at Cobo Hall, and it turned out it was Tom Gale [Chrysler’s chief of design]. He said, ‘If you ever need anything, let me know.’ So years later, we’re doing Sniper, and I thought I’d call him on a Friday, thinking he’d never answer the phone. I left my name and number, and Monday morning he calls me. He knew everything I’d built since I talked to him—it was awesome! I told him about the Plymouth and he said he could help. He had to go down the chain of command, and I get a call from Dan Jankowski, who was the head guy on the Viper, and he told me to come up in a few weeks and they’d have something for me. So we drive up in the truck and trailer to the Viper R&D center and saw some of the new GTS coupes there, and he said, ‘You’ve seen those? That’s the car you’re taking home.’ It was an R&D car with about 5,000 miles on it. We loaded this running, driving GTS coupe in my trailer, and I called
every son of a bitch I’d ever met telling them about it!

7/28

They just wanted me to bring back something to crush, so we cut it up and took all the parts out of it. We knocked that car out start to finish in 13 months, which was big at the time. If you brought that car out today, it would still fit right in. We did Power Tour that year with it, but the biggest thing was that it was at the 50th anniversary of HOT ROD at the SEMA show, and they inducted the top 50 guys into the hall of fame, and I was one of them. So I take this new customer with this awesome car idea, we get a Viper given to us, build the car in 13 months, drive it cross-country, and then unveil it at the Hilton—it was just awesome. In my wife’s office, there are only two pictures hanging up. One is George and me at that unveiling and the other is the Ridler deal with Ross.

Intruder

1957 Ford Ranch Wagon

George [Poteet] likes the Ford Ranch Wagons. He bought a really nice one from Chico at Mooneyes, and we were just going to do a front end under it and some mild stuf, but, of course, it got out of control. We cut it up and did a full chassis under it, the whole gamut, and drove it on the Power Tour that year. It was a neat car, a little custom. Bobby Walden in Texas, who helped on Sniper, did a little bit to the wagon. It was a nice car to follow Sniper but was nowhere near like it.

8/28

Bisquick

1961 Chevy Biscayne

Mom and Dad were looking for something to drive. They sold my 1966, bought a 1961 Chevy, and we were doing the Sniper at the time. Bisquick was one of the first cars that had the 18s and 20s, and kind of street-rod-style, you could call it. It had a 600-inch Trick Flow all-aluminum motor, so it still had some street machine in it, and my buddy in Amarillo, Mark Warrick, painted it. We did Power Tour® that year. It was a nice car but pretty straightforward, nothing goofy, and a lot lower budget than Sniper. I think my mom and dad did five Power Tours® with that car. They sold it, but it’s still around.

9/28

Quadradeuce

1932 Ford

I’d watched [Mark] Stielow build it in Street Rodder magazine, and it was cool, but I didn’t like the purple and yellow he used. It was bizarre, and I was doing some queer colors myself, you know. Then Summit Racing calls and said they had the car and wanted to finish it. So I went and got it, and we started doing it more street-rod-style but kept all the stuff Stielow had done with the all-wheel-drive. Summit had a budget crunch, but we really wanted to finish the car, so my dad paid them for the car, saying he’d pay to finish it and haul it all around as the Summit car and get all the promotional bang out of it, then own it when it’s done. They did the Power Tour® in that car, and it was a good running car. We ended up doing an eBay sale, and Summit bought it back. It sits in their showroom now. I’d like to go get it and have Stielow drive it in an autocross, like the Optima shootout, since that’s what he originally was building it for. It would be an ass-kicking machine. All we really did was pretty it up.

10/28

Ritzow’s 1932

1932 Ford

Right when Boyds was going under and Chip was running the show, one of the last cars they finished was a red 1946 convertible for Roger Ritzow and his wife, Nancy, in Wisconsin. He had some problems with vibration and stuff when he got it home, so he called Chip and asked how to get it fixed, and Chip recommended he take it to me to look at, since I was close. We ended up fixing that car for him, and he kept calling me wanting to do a 1932 street rod. I’m not a 1932 guy, so if we’re going to do it, there’s gotta be something trick. He turned us loose and just said, ‘Do an awesome 1932,’ so the first call I made is to George and asked him, ‘How the hell am I gonna make a statement with a 1932?’ I got some parts from him that nobody else had, and he influenced me a lot during the build of that car, and Roger just let us do what we wanted. It’s one of those deals that was changed 10,000 ways from Sunday, but if you don’t know that car, you’d never know. I’ve got two guys that’ll pay him twice what he’s got in it to this day in one minute. We had it out all summer, then brought it to Pomona for the America’s Most Beautiful Roadster show. It got beat by Steve Moal’s car, a nice 1932 but real flashy, and ours was real subdued. But ours made the list of the Top 75 1932s of all time. It’s the newest car on the list out of the 75, which was awesome. We don’t build 1932s, so to get on that list was pretty big. It has a little flathead and it runs like a watch.

11/28

Cad Attalk

1962 Cadillac Convertible

Randy Wilcox in Minnesota wanted to do a big Caddy, so he brought us a 1962 that he’d been messing with. It was in pieces, so we were going to just do this and that and ended up doing the whole car. We did a big, 500ci Caddy motor and slicked it up. It was another SEMA project, and we did all the shows with it. It’s another nice car that was under the radar, and another good stepping stone since it was a custom. I kind of bounced around from street machines to customs a little bit, then once in a while dabbled in a street rod, so it was a nice mix.

12/28

That’s probably the one car I’ve built that he can double his money on right now.”
- Troy Trepanier

Chicayne

1962 Chevy Biscayne

Angelo [Giampatroni, then of Ford Racing] got me hooked up with Glenn Grozich at Billet Specialties, and he wanted to do a 1962 Chevy. We had done John Meaney’s twin-turbo Vette, which was my first time around turbocharging. It was unbelievable. Glen came down and asked what we wanted to do for power, so I had Meany give him a ride in the Corvette and that was it—he got out of that thing and said, All right, twin turbos.’ So we built Chicayne and did some pretty extensive work to that car. Glenn let me do whatever I wanted. I had some sick colors in mind for the car—that puke-army-green and that other green, and I just loved ’em. They always give me crap that if I could paint every car green, I would. A neat thing that came out of that car was I built that pulley system here on my bandsaw, then went up and sat with his designers and pushed them into doing it, and now that’s huge for him. That was one of the first cars they unveiled in a booth at SEMA, and now everybody does it, which is cool. We did Power Tour® that year. It sat at my shop its entire life up until a couple months ago, when he needed it for something. It was always a good tool to take people interested in building a car for a ride, because it rides good, handles well, and hauls ass, so my joke was I’d take someone for a ride, and they’d empty their wallet.

13/28

That’s one of my favorite cars—it still has the look, and I think it really got the upper-end street-machine stuff really wound up.”
- Troy Trepanier

Fast-Forward Fastback

1967 Ford Mustang

This was when all the TLC stuff was on TV with Rides and Overhaulin’. They called and asked if we were doing anything they could make a show out of, and they picked the eBay Mustang we were doing with HOT ROD, so we did a Rides show with them. We built the car, did the TV show with it, and brought it to SEMA in HOT ROD’s booth and had a live eBay auction. It sold for $150,000 or something and went to charity.

14/28

Sick Fish

1970 Plymouth ‘Cuda

From doing the Rides show, I became friends with [producer] Bud Brutsman, and he said, ‘I got a buddy here who wants to do a car.’ It was Joe Rogan of the TV show Fear Factor, which we watched at home, so I thought that was pretty cool. I found the car an hour from here buried in snow, but it was an absolutely perfect, rust-free ’70 ’Cuda. I got Chip involved, and we designed the car and got it done in bare steel and did the cover with HOT ROD [Nov. ’04]. I was in Columbus and get a call at 2 a.m. from Rogan, and he said he loved the pictures and wanted to leave it silver. I’m thinking, No way, man, I’ll call you when I get home and we can talk about it. Chip had done this killer rendering of black and red, so we talk and I offered to buy it back from him since I thought it was going to look stupid all silver. But that’s what he wanted. I ended up doing the hood satin, which is a little better than nothing, but it was a killer car at the time. The Hemi Dakota that we’d built for HOT ROD was about to be crushed, but they let me have the engine and transmission out of it, so that’s what’s in the Rogan car.

15/28

Joe had the car and was driving it around Los Angeles. We were bringing some cars to SEMA, and Joe’s car shows up on a Pilot transport and the fender’s all caved in on it. So I called Joe thinking it got busted up in the truck, and he said no, he was at a gas station and wasn’t paying attention and this semi trailer backed up into it. And now I’ve got a day to make it right before the show. So I flew my painter out, and we fixed it at a local body shop. I’d have loved to have done that car just a little further for somebody who’d really appreciate it. He wasn’t a car guy, and we like to build our cars for real car guys.

Manny’s 1967

1967 Lincoln

We did the Lincoln for [pro baseball player] Many Ramirez. It was neat because I’d been watching the Boston Red Sox with my kids, and he’d just signed a $280-million contract. So I pick him up at the airport, and, of course, he’s got his agent with him. He told me he wanted to do a Lincoln and gave me some ideas, then played the hero card. You know, ‘I’m gonna make you famous, so give us a deal.’ I’m doing OK by myself, thank you. Anyway, we do the car, and it was a pain in the ass, but it ended up being a nice car. The papers had been razzing Ramirez about never giving anything to charity, so he auctioned the car of and they got $150,000 or something, and gave the money to charity.

16/28

That was my last deal working for athletes and movie people. Working through a middle man, like their PR manager, is hard. You spend all day on the phone. Unless they’re car guys, I don’t want to do it, and if this is the first car they’re building, I don’t want to be the first guy to build it, either. We’re spoiled with these other guys, you know?

Chocolate Thunder

1937 Ford Convertible

That car was started at another shop, and we changed it up into a highdollar, trick build, supercharged, with odd colors of copper and chocolate. It went to SEMA and did a few indoor car shows, and on the way to a show in Canada, my guy Moose stopped in Quebec for the night. I get a call the next morning that the truck, trailer, and car are gone. They stole like six things around that area, from trucks to trailers and stuff. That was in 2006, and I just settled that deal with the insurance company about three months ago. We got pictures of it twice, anonymously, inside a trailer with a current newspaper on the windshield to show the car and current date, and got calls wanting ransom money for it. The FBI got involved, and they ended up having bounty hunters looking for it and all kinds of stuff going on. It’s unfortunate that we never got to get that car out during the summer. He never even got to drive it.

17/28

“It was Hot Rod’s car of the Year, and that same year we also had the Ridler car in the Top Ten, so you got a full-blown show car and a full-blown race car. That couldn’t say anything more for the guys at the shop.”
- Troy Trepanier

Blowfish

1969 Plymouth Barracuda

18/28

George had been going to Bonneville for a couple of years by then and was hooked up in the Speed Demon [streamliner with partner Ron Main], and all that took off. We were in Detroit at the Autorama, and I showed George that trick four-cylinder Mopar engine with the USAC block, Hemi head, and all this craziness. He liked 1969 Barracudas, so that’s what spawned the Blowfish.

19/28

We got about 40 percent of the way though the fabrication and realized we needed to find a wind tunnel or something, so I start calling all my connections at Chrysler, and we ended up spending 40 hours in the wind tunnel a Chrysler for free. It was awesome. You just can’t get in there. We finally got it all done, went [to Bonneville] in 2007, I think, with the four-cylinder. We were definitely rookies. I’ll never forget when I pulled up to tech with it, someone said, ‘Look, they brought a show car out here.’ We go to the 3-mile course to qualify for the big course, for the first pass ever under its own power, and I’m freaked out. I never built a race car, and we’re getting ready to find out if it runs. He went 236 to the 3, so that was good. Two passes to the 3-mile on the big course, and we had a 253-mph average, so that was a big relief. We’ve raced it every year since then, and that’s been the biggest thing I’ve ever done. Car shows are subject to opinion, but when you’re out there, you either put the time up or you don’t—that’s what I like about it the most. We’ve set four records with it now, and went 319 two years ago with a new Dodge NASCAR V8. This year we went out with 700 more horsepower, but it was a wet track and he spun it out at 275 and tore it up a little bit, but we’re going to put traction control on it and a few other things and go back again next year. It’ll run 340 or 350, I’m pretty sure—we just have to get the balance back now that we have the horsepower.

20/28

First Love

1936 Ford Three-Window Coupe

My dad met Ross Myers at a show, and he came to visit when we unveiled Roger’s 1932. He came back in with this 1936 Ford he’d started and said he wanted to do it for the Ridler. He bought it when he was nine for $25, so I knew we had the right guy. It had been in the works for three years at another shop, and I know he had to have $400,000 in it, so we get it in primer and I told him I’d like to keep the roof, quarters, decklid, and engine and throw the rest away, and he said, ‘Sounds good, let’s do it.’ He challenged us, and we went to the moon on that thing. Chip would say it, too.

21/28

When he saw it at Autorama, I asked him what he thought. He crawled under it and everything and said, ‘I’m gonna cut my hands off, I don’t want to compete with this thing.’ You can only stretch, and lengthen, and chop a 1936 Ford so many ways—it’s already been done. So we did all that necessary stuff on the body, but we’re more mechanical here than cosmetic, so we really focused on the chassis and drivetrain. I wanted it where when people looked at it, they couldn’t compare it to anything else they’ve seen.

I’d like to do a version of that car to drive because the styling on the outside, the proportions, are right on the money. It drives, but if you go 10 miles, it’d cost you $400,000 to fix it because everything’s so dialed up on it. A lot of people ask me if I’d do another Ridler car. The guys I have now, the equipment I have now, we could do a better job and get more creative, but it takes a special [customer] to do that. I won it once, and that’s fine with me.

There’s a [Ridler] winner every year, but I want this car to be the one they compare it to. I want people to look at cars and say, ‘Boy, this is nice, but this ain’t no first-love car.”— Troy Trepanier

Passion

1956 Chrysler 300B

That’s probably the nicest car we’ve built from a standpoint of quality, function, and style. We built the 1932 Ford for Roger Ritzow and his wife, and ran it on a Power Tour. I’d seen a 1956 Chrysler and thought it was neat, and kept it in the back of my head. We found one, and he came to look at it and said, ‘The only thing I want is 1,000 horsepower at the wheels.’ So we went into the whole R5 Dodge and turbo thing we already knew from the Blowfish. Roger wanted a lot of technology in the car and was willing to pay for it. It was for his wife, Nancy, so he let us go crazy, and we turned it loose. The chassis is sick, like the Ridler car, but this one was built to drive. He put 5,000 miles on it the first year and took it to a track day at Road America with his Ferrari buddies. They clocked it at 143 down the front straight, 5,200 pounds, and even though it was heavy, with 1,000 hp and Viper suspension and brakes, it was a real high-function car. That’s one of the best ones we’ve done, for sure.

22/28

Miller Hauler

1932 Ford Pickup

George [Poteet] dreamed that up because he’s so into the history. Brian Stinger in Indianapolis is a big Miller guy, and he started on it. It was through fabrication and was becoming one of those deals that was taking forever, so George had Brian get it to our shop so we could finish it. It came to me in bare steel. All the designing was done, so all we did was execute the build, paint, and body. Brian had a neat concept there—as if Miller had a shop truck at the time, this might have been it, obviously fancied up. It’s a neat little truck. It isn’t much to drive since you can’t hardly fit in it, but it has a lot of neat details. George had it at one of his barbecues at his place, and a guy who he knew commented on how much he liked it, and George knew the guy didn’t have a lot of money so he joked, ‘That truck ain’t worth 50 grand.’ So this guy goes and gets two other guys together and they get 50 grand together and come back to him. And George is the type of guy that if he said it, he meant it. So they give him 50 grand for a car he had probably $500,000 in. He couldn’t go back on his word. So they go to Barrett-Jackson and sell it for $250,000. George knew what they were doing, but he didn’t worry about it. He’s an amazing guy, I’ll tell you that.

23/28

G54

1954 Buick

I’ve been getting a lot of jobs from recommendations. Hal Wing has a collection of about 60 cars but he’d never been to a Goodguys event or anything like that. He’s more of a Pebble Beach guy and has a bunch of high-end Porsches. He had a brand-new Mercedes G55 and crashed it, but he bought it back from the insurance company and wanted to put the drivetrain in something. His Porsche guy said, ‘I can only think of one guy that can pull that off,’ so I got the job from that. He let me pick the car, so I got the 1954 Buick and we got the G-wagon and tore it all apart. There were six months of wiring to get everything to function—you cannot believe the amount of wiring in this thing. If you went end to end, it’d probably reach from here to California. It’s crazy the stuff that Mercedes does. We did SEMA and a few shows, and he drove it a little bit, but he died about six months ago of a heart attack.

24/28

Some of the Others

Rad Rides has built many more cars than we have the space to show in this story, which is too bad since most of them are really cool and range from mild to wild, race to show, and everything in between. And economy be damned, the shop is always busy. You’ve seen the Torino he built for Poteet in this magazine (Sept. 2012) in bare metal, and that car just got paint. The shop also did a 1933 Ford land-speed car for Mark and Dennis Mariani that is picking away at the Bonneville record book as we speak. With a 10,000-plusrpm and a 250ci engine, Troy describes it as a hummingbird. Also seen in the background of past HOT ROD photos is a 1956 Buick the shop is building for a guy in Iowa with a twin-turbo Nailhead, and the wild third-gen Camaro we’ve also shown you before.

25/28

Like we said, there’s always something going on at Rad Rides, and if you keep reading HOT ROD, you’re sure to see them on a regular basis.